Three out of five isn't bad.
In the last couple of months I've submitted five pieces to contests and anthologies mostly at the urging of my recent poetry instructor, Thresha Haefner at The Poetry Salon. And I found out that submitting really pays off. It's like lottery tickets. If you don't buy one, you have no chance of winning.
In all I submitted three poems, a poetry chapbook, and an excerpt from my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. Two of the three poems were accepted one is still in review, and the excerpt was accepted to appear in a suicide loss anthology. Unfortunately the chapbook didn't make it, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up. I'll submit it again and again to wherever seems suitable.
And so as not to keep you in the dark, here are the two poems that will come out soon: Stop and Go will appear in Yellow Chair Review's In the Words of Women anthology, and Remnants will appear in the 2016 Porter Gulch Review.
Stop and Go
On the drive up the coast
I p … [Read more...]

I'm so pleased that Susan Weidener invited me to participate in this blog hop and was so generous in her praise of my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. I'm now paying it forward by recommending a few traditionally and independently published books for your summer reading enjoyment. Please include some of your favorite reads in the comments below.
Adventures in Mother-Sitting by Doreen Cox. In this love story Author Doreen Cox shares her experience as a "care bear" during the last three years of her mother's life and how she learned to live with her mother's slow progression from a viable, interesting, lovable, and happy woman to a woman overcome by dementia unable to handle even her most basic bodily needs. And Doreen doesn't shirk away from those details. She repeatedly quotes her mother's mantra: "You just do what you have to do."
Doreen gave up her as a career group counselor at an alternative school for at-risk and SED high school students to care for her mother, and she never re … [Read more...]

[I use Grammarly's english grammar check online because if you think using good grammar was only important for your school term papers, you've got another think coming.]
In keeping with the quotes and storied included in Reverend Linda Rhinehart Neas' inspirational anthology, Returning to the Circle: Inspirational Wisdom from Women for Women, Linda has shared with us here at Choices her important advice to teens and young women about breast cancer awareness.
But first, more about this lovely anthology and how thrilled I am to have a piece about my journaling experience included. I jumped at the chance to participate when Linda told me of her plan to edit a book containing quotes and affirmations by famous women and true stories by real women, who have faced difficulties, obstacles and pain. These are stories of your mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, or friend. As Linda suggests: Learn from their experiences. Trust their judgment. Believe in their wisdom.
Over a year ago, … [Read more...]

The sixties in my life were turbulent indeed: moving from Chicago to Los Angeles, transferring from the University of Wisconsin to UCLA, getting married, graduating college, working at my first real job as a technical writer and editor in the aerospace business, having a miscarriage, getting divorced, spending five years looking for the real Mr. Right and trying to get equal pay and status in the corporate world, and remarrying just as the seventies came around. It was the time of the Pill, which I took advantage of, and a new kind of openness and creativity as my WOW Women on Writing blog tour guest Kate Farrell discusses today. I certainly remember those times especially the music that I still love to listen to in this twenty-first century.
Now just in time for the holidays, Linda Joy Myers, Kate Farrell and Amber Lea Starfire have launched their anthology Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the '60s and '70s. The book is the perfect gift for opening discussions with f … [Read more...]